I've installed a 250 gig hard drive(western digital) and the bios shows 250GB but windows only shows and formatted 131.... How do I get windows to recognize the entire 250gb? Can it be done with out losing this fresh install? TIA Pete

1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
2. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Atapi\Parameters
3. On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then add the following registry value:
Value name: EnableBigLba
Data type: REG_DWORD
Value data: 0x1
4. Quit Registry Editor.

Or try this tool:
http://www.48bitlba.com/enablebiglbatool.htm

Tried the tool and it says everything is ok. The more I've thought about it and if I remember right I partitioned the hard drive for a 130 gig and 120 gig partitions but don't remember XP asking to format the second partition. Any "freeware" out there to fix my mistake? TIA Pete

If you partitioned your physical drive into two logical drives at installation time, no other software should be needed. You need to get to 'Computer Management'. Couple ways to do it depending on how you've set up XP.

One way:
1. Start
2. Right-click My Computer
3. Select Manage
Another way:
1. Start
2. Control Panel
3. Administrative Tools
4. Computer Management

Both will get you to the Computer Management (Local) snap in module. Click the plus sign (+) by Storage to open the tree then click Disk Management. You should see a layout of your drives. Your primary drive (disk 0) should show two partitions (something like my disk 2). One partition should be like the /////////// background and shown as Healthy (system). Undefined partition would be shown as a blank with no drive letter. You should be able to right-click the blank area and Format it and assign it a drive letter.

Your first (or primary) drive is drive C:, your CD (if available) is drive D:, etc. so the newly formatted partition would be the next letter available, E: for example.

If you want the 2nd partition to be drive letter D:, once it's formatted change the CDROM drive to something like F:, G:, etc. to get it out of the way. Then change the new partition to D: since that letter is now freed up. Finally, change the CDROM drive back to E:.

Whatever you do, don't mess with the current drive C: or the one marked with (system). :noway:

See if that works for you. You won't get the full 130Mb and 120Mb as there is overhead of 7% to 10%. In my case, both disk 0 and disk 2 are identical 250Gb drives but only 232.88Gb are available. Disk 1 is a 200Gb drive but only 189.92Gb is available.

If you partitioned your physical drive into two logical drives at installation time, no other software should be needed. You need to get to 'Computer Management'. Couple ways to do it depending on how you've set up XP.

One way:
1. Start
2. Right-click My Computer
3. Select Manage
Another way:
1. Start
2. Control Panel
3. Administrative Tools
4. Computer Management

Both will get you to the Computer Management (Local) snap in module. Click the plus sign (+) by Storage to open the tree then click Disk Management. You should see a layout of your drives. Your primary drive (disk 0) should show two partitions (something like my disk 2). One partition should be like the /////////// background and shown as Healthy (system). Undefined partition would be shown as a blank with no drive letter. You should be able to right-click the blank area and Format it and assign it a drive letter.

Your first (or primary) drive is drive C:, your CD (if available) is drive D:, etc. so the newly formatted partition would be the next letter available, E: for example.

If you want the 2nd partition to be drive letter D:, once it's formatted change the CDROM drive to something like F:, G:, etc. to get it out of the way. Then change the new partition to D: since that letter is now freed up. Finally, change the CDROM drive back to E:.

Whatever you do, don't mess with the current drive C: or the one marked with (system). :noway:

See if that works for you. You won't get the full 130Mb and 120Mb as there is overhead of 7% to 10%. In my case, both disk 0 and disk 2 are identical 250Gb drives but only 232.88Gb are available. Disk 1 is a 200Gb drive but only 189.92Gb is available.

Dale,
This did it :hurray::hurray::hurray: Thanks Pete

Great, more disk space for photos of Chevelles :thumbsup: